So here we go... 24+ A/V Zones w/10 Sources

BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
This past year I moved. My old home was pretty well setup, but didn't have any land and with young kids it was time for a new home a lot closer to my office. So, here I am, less than a mile from my office, with some land for the kids, but my old home A/V system left behind.

You know what that means... Time to start over!

I will update with more photos as I can and time allows, but wanted to put some photos up here so people can see part of what is going on with this experience. It's about 100 wires coming into two equipment racks externally and another 100 or so wires will end up getting used internally to the equpment racks.

I've got a LONG way to go on this, but here's the start.

Feel free to ask questions for clarification of any details in the setup.



















 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Holy Rotel! Holy NAS!

My, what large racks you have!

wait, wait, wait, 24 zones? 24?!
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
wait, wait, wait, 24 zones? 24?!
Yep, 24 zones. But, a few of those are future areas right now since the basement isn't finished.

A/V Zones:
1. Family Room (3.1 setup)
2. Master Bedroom (stereo)
3. Playroom (stereo)
4. Guest Bedroom (stereo)

Audio Zones:
5. Garage
6. Kitchen
7. Eat-In Area
8. Morning Room
9. Back Porch
10. Living Room
11. Dining Room
12. Study
13. Kid's Bedroom 1
14. Kid's Bedroom 2
15. Kid's Bathroom
16. Guest Bathroom
17. Master Bathroom
18. Basement
19. Headphones 1
20. Headphones 2

The wireless headphones can be linked to any audio room on the fly which means that if you can't have the volume on in a room, you can still listen to things while in that room. This is most typical for after the kids have gone to bed TV viewing.

The basement will likely be finished with a couple of zones, and we will probably never use all 24 available zones to us, which is part of the build scope... I don't want to 'wish' for one more zone in the future. Ever.

We can actually have up to 24 audio sources as well, but at this time, I think the 9 or 10 or something that we will have is plenty.
Cable 1
Cable 2
Dune 1
Dune 2
XM
FM
Blu-ray/VCR (house)
PS3
Wii
Blu-ray (family room dedicated) (maybe)

The Wii and PS3 will be viewable anywhere and I am using two sensors that are relay triggered to make them available in the family room or the playroom.

Also integrated will be lighting control, fireplace control, and blinds. Eventually, I'll figure out how to get the Nest thermostats into the mix as well.
 
its phillip

its phillip

Audioholic Ninja
Nice! Too bad the forum doesn't automatically resize the width of the images to whatever size D:
 
Z

zilla

Junior Audioholic
Too bad the firewall here at work is blocking the images.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Too bad the firewall here at work is blocking the images.
According to our web filter vendor - websense - BMX's site wasn't categorized - ergo possible reason to be blocked.
I suggested them to change it

This might fix the issue for you zilla
 
Z

zilla

Junior Audioholic
According to our web filter vendor - websense - BMX's site wasn't categorized - ergo possible reason to be blocked.
I suggested them to change it

This might fix the issue for you zilla
Works fine from home :) But I'll test it tomorrow and let ya know. Thanks!
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
The basement will likely be finished with a couple of zones, and we will probably never use all 24 available zones to us, which is part of the build scope... I don't want to 'wish' for one more zone in the future. Ever.
Oh, ok, I finally understand why you couldn't settle for only 23 zones. :p

Also integrated will be lighting control, fireplace control, and blinds. Eventually, I'll figure out how to get the Nest thermostats into the mix as well.
I'm disappointed. You forgot sprinklers, garage door, microwave oven, and coffee machine. :p

I've no idea how you do this stuff, so with that said I can't imagine the "architecture", and how you plan it all out (computer program? pencil and paper?). I guess it is difficult to explain how many and/or which sources can be played in whichever zones, eh? It's clearly evident to the user in any given zone what they can play with? Or you're always choosing for them? How many remotes are floating around your place anyway? :eek: All touch panels or something? You don't have to answer anything, I'm just wondering out loud.

It would probably be pretty amusing to see your Monoprice invoices for wire mgmt, lol. Mono speakers too, for economy?

I also wonder how it's automated know when a source has a mch signal sent through, vs 2 channel (I suppose it's automatically downmixed somewhere?).
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Oh, ok, I finally understand why you couldn't settle for only 23 zones. :p
Glad you understand, it was a struggle to settle for 24 for me.



I'm disappointed. You forgot sprinklers, garage door, microwave oven, and coffee machine. :p
Garage is very likely to end up on this list. I did forget to mention that the front door deadbolt IS part of the system. I would like to have a 'Goodnight' button which shuts off all the house lights, locks the doors, and puts down the garage door if possible. At the very least, a notice that the garage door is still open. My wife has a tendency to leave her car sticking out of the door a bit.

I've no idea how you do this stuff, so with that said I can't imagine the "architecture", and how you plan it all out (computer program? pencil and paper?).
Mostly on paper and with Word. I make a list of the rooms, of what I want in those rooms, and I put together ideas. I try to find cool stuff, which is reasonably priced, and start collecting it and searching on eBay. Those Rotel amps are VERY hard to come by and are still the best I've heard with incredible reliability. The wire list is the big thing. Floor by floor, location by location, every single wire gets named. I numbered them for my list, but ended up labelling them and using the different colors for easier identification.

I guess it is difficult to explain how many and/or which sources can be played in whichever zones, eh? It's clearly evident to the user in any given zone what they can play with? Or you're always choosing for them? How many remotes are floating around your place anyway? :eek: All touch panels or something?
Every A/V zone has access to every source. Since almost all surround type sources include a stereo audio mix from the back, I use that into the distribution pre-amp, and I use the surround mix into a different switcher to handle that. The only dedicated source planned right now is a Panasonic 3D BD player in the family room. Can't swing an Oppo right now.

So, every room will have a MX-850 remote control (RF) which is dedicated to the room. Pick it up, press the button that says 'cable 1' or 'dune 1' and it starts everything up. Devices are only powered on as needed.

Audio only zones are controlled through a 12-button keypad in the room. Cable 1, Cable 2, Dune 1, Dune 2, XM, FM, and Blu-ray are the available audio sources, and you can track up/down, or channel up/down through the keypad, then control volume and turn it off in that zone.

Of course, I'm working on a full iPhone and separate iPad interface, and I probably will have a dedicated 15" touchpanel as well as a 8" wireless touchpanel in the home just for show and tell.

It would probably be pretty amusing to see your Monoprice invoices for wire mgmt, lol. Mono speakers too, for economy?
About $2,500 in Monoprice. Yes, all Monoprice speakers in-walls/ceilings. I had the speaker wire already, got a great deal on Monster CIPRO cable which is great stuff despite it saying Monster on it. Things like the video cables are using component HD distribution until I can afford the $10,000+ HDMI distribution will cost me. So, that's all Extron mini-high-resolution cabling which I terminate myself. HDMI is from Monoprice, and if I need it, HD-Base-T is from Monoprice.

Mostly, it is the labor of building these racks and wiring the home. Got into our home a week early to run the wires, and I think I got most of the tough wires in place. But, I still need to tackle the garage and I need to drop wires down the wall in the bedrooms in the attic. Only the kid's playroom has wires dropped and speakers in place upstairs. Master bedroom is next, then guest room, but I want to get it ALL in place, which will take weeks of real work - which means months for me to actually get done.

I'm psyched about it all for sure, but trying to pace myself on it.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Oh, and this is what I've had built up for control from my old home, which will likely be close to what ends up being in place for the new home...



 
ParadigmDawg

ParadigmDawg

Audioholic Overlord
Good Gawd BMX...

Run by and clean up my wires for me when you are done.
 
P

pote8218

Audioholic Intern
Any updates for this, this is pretty insane and I'm pretty sure I want to do this when I build my home.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Any updates for this, this is pretty insane and I'm pretty sure I want to do this when I build my home.
Not much yet. Unfortunately since we just moved into our home we have been hitting all the other projects that have been going on and I've had a couple of side projects which have kicked up. Just moved our laundry room from the main floor to the top floor, buidling a closet in the playroom, and redoing the family room.

I've had a few more cables I've made and put in place (not many) and this week I'm hoping to get one of the cable boxes installed into the rack and the master bedroom television hung and working. Once that's in place, I can start focussing a bit more on other stuff.

Unfortunately, I decided that I want to move my family room equpment rack from next to the couch to the wall (built in) of our hall closet. It will free up floor space, improve the look of the room, and take me two or three hours to run all the cables, then several days to terminate and clean everything up.

I expect this to be a process which will hit a pretty good 'look at how awesomet this is' point in about six months. Kind of like growing up, it's gonna happen in small spurts as my time allows.

Weird thing is that a lot of setup occurs without much functionality, but then it will be one day and all the audio zones will be online the next day because of all the prep work that went in place. I'm a ways out from that.
 
majorloser

majorloser

Moderator
What, no video zone in the bathroom? I figured you'd have a monitor behind the master bath mirror.

But then again, I guess you'd just stream media to your iPad while sitting on the "throne". :)
 
adk highlander

adk highlander

pessimistic optimist
Hi BMX. I am looking forward to watching this progress. Please don't skimp on the details as you go through you setup. I am always interested in knowing what wires are going to each zone and the specific equipment list of both your electronics and control products so see how this will all go together.

I am more or less maxed out with the gear I have both for HD video distribution and my URC controller has every port in use.

Interesting to see you are staying with the Extron with component distribution. I know that piece is bombproof (thanks by the way) but was hoping to see that you had found a reasonably priced HDBaseT setup that would allow you to use HDMI in all video zones. I've never had any issues with picture quality with component but knowing the analog sunset is here I keep wondering when DirecTV will turn them off. They have made it where if you have both HDMI and component connected to their box it will not play premium channels or pay-per-view. You have to disconnect the HDMI cable which has made for some fun phone calls with the wife. Fortunately I color coded my HDMI cables so she knows to disconnect the green one.:)
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
The HDMI sunset isn't really here for television. By law, at this time, television must be made available with component HD outputs. If you are ever given a cable box/DirecTV box without component video, you may request a different model which includes the legacy connection on it.

I have used Monoprice HD-Base-T extenders, and they work awesome. My issue is not with the extension, and I have ALL the lines in place. In fact, I actually have a 75 foot HDMI cable from the master bedroom to the basement which I hooked up right now for cable TV to the bedroom. It works great! The problem is that a GOOD HDMI matrix switcher is not less than $5,000. Anyone who has used multi-zone HDMI may be aware of HDMI drop out issues when other rooms switch video on/off or other things that cause HDMI dropouts within a matrix. The new good stuff from Pure Link, Extron, and Crestron doesn't have any of these issues, and they are PRICEY! I would want a 16x16 matrix (I think) which would set me back over $10K for a Crestron DM system and that's at cost, not MSRP! Not in the budget anytime soon I'm afraid.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Alright! Here is an update several weeks later.

I've begun extensive work on the equipment rack wiring. All 40 amplifier channels are wired in clean from the audio matrix and the control wires for the Dune Media players with A/V are in place. I'm still working on cable tuners and getting control wires in place for all the TVs, but the TV in the family room is connected with full control through the Crestron remotes and the Denon receiver is working nicely with just a pair of speakers so far in the family room. I have some photos of the mess of wires before they were fully dressed in along with the 'after' photos of the wiring after it was completely straightened up. A LOT of wiring pics, as well as some images showing the labelling that I'm doing on all the cables. As well as a couple of pics of the speaker wiring passing straight down and the master bedroom TV/built-in setup (this was newly built into our home)...




















 
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